chapter thirteen

As soon as the door to the psychologist’s office snapped shut behind me, I put in for three days of vacation—effective immediately. Then I called Shin.

“I’m off duty,” he said by way of greeting. “So, what does it mean that I’m happy to hear from you already?” Shin was sitting cross-legged on the roof of his house making repairs, a messy stack of white, sun-reflective tiles to his right.

“You’re a good cop and a bad roofer,” I said. “I called to say go ahead and close out the Devonshire file.”

Hammer in hand, he peered hard at me then slowly shook his head. “Every door that closes opens a window, as my grandmother used to harp at me. Is that it?”

“Your grandmother was a fount of wisdom.”

“And you’re a crazy hakujin.” Shin put down the hammer and stared at me again. “Don’t do anything stupid, Eddie. I mean it. I don’t want to break in another new partner.” He sighed, but I watched as Shin closed the Devonshire file via phone and went back to his roofing.

With the case closed, there was nothing that said I couldn’t have a friendly chat with Dr. Lee during my vacation. My glove phone told me it was already past seven. Too late to head out to the Valley given L.A. traffic, but I might be able to catch him at home. For the first time since the shooting, I felt a sudden rush of optimism.

Pacific Palisades, with houses that dot the mountains as they spill down to the ocean, is utter suburbia for rich people who call themselves middle-class. Unlike gated communities for the ueber-rich, places like Beverly Park, no security guards control access to the Palisades. Its leafy streets fan off one feeder boulevard—Sunset.

Lee’s home was a gray Cape Cod McMansion crammed onto a small lot not far from Sunset. Freshly painted white trim on the house matched the low white picket fence that ran along the edge of the line between sidewalk and lawn. Tidy borders of Mexican sage clustered near the fence.

A late model white Mercedes SUV sat parked in the drive. Last night’s research with Shin told me it belonged to Lee’s wife Meredith. There was also a high-powered Yamaha job standing next to it. The bike was registered to the teenaged son, Raymond.

No sign of Lee’s Lexus E3, so I parked a little way up from the house and waited. Even from fifty feet away, I could spot cameras and sensors that covered the front and side doors of the house. A glance up and down the street at the neighboring homes told me they weren’t standard for the area.

There’d been no police reports of illegal activity of any note in the vicinity of Lee’s home either. Yet Lee’s latest model Smart Sensa-guard security with its drone patrol and fast response time cost about fifty grand. Was Lee typically hyper-vigilant, or had something spooked him recently? Like a troublesome girlfriend making threats?

Past eight now, and still no sign of the Lexus, so I rang the front door bell and waited. The flat slapping sound of bare feet on hardwood floors told me someone was approaching, but the door didn’t open. I flipped my coat jacket open, letting my gold shield wink at the invisible watcher behind those CCTV cameras.

“Yeah,” said a bored teenaged voice that I guessed belonged to Lee’s son Raymond. The face matching the voice appeared on the security screen to the left of the doorbell. He yawned. His hair stuck out at strange angles without benefit of product and he had sleep in the corners of his glassy eyes.

“Detective Piedmont,” I said. “I’d like to talk to Dr. Gabriel Lee.”

“He’s not here.”

“Where is he?”

Raymond shrugged.

This time there were no telltale footsteps before the door abruptly swung open. Meredith Lee stepped slightly in front of her son and regarded me with wary concern.

“Can I help you, detective?” Her eyes were black stones set in an unsmiling wrinkle-free face. Meredith Lee’s ink-colored coiffeur showed no hair out of place. She wore an expensive beige sweater set with a single strand of black pearls and coordinated trousers.

“Dr. Lee,” I said, remembering she’d been an anesthesiologist before taking early retirement. “I need to talk to your husband.”

“It’s Mrs. Lee. What’s this about?” Her voice betrayed the barest hint of a Korean accent.

I could see past Mrs. Lee to the foyer. A row of white orchids anchored by smooth gray pebbles in square glass vases sat on a stone bench next to the wall to the right. A few pairs of shoes lined up with military precision stood under the bench, including neon-colored sneakers and a variety of women’s shoes.

“I need to ask him about a woman named Britney Devonshire.”

The name sparked no sign of recognition from Mrs. Lee.

“He may be able to help us out with some information.”

“Why would my husband know anything about this woman?”

I shot a pointed glance at her son. “Could we speak in private, Mrs. Lee?”

Her spine stiffened. “I’m sorry. I think you’ve made a mistake. I can’t help you.” Mrs. Lee started to shut the door.

The door caught on my foot as I pulled up a picture of the auburn knockout and held it out for her and her son to see. “This is Britney Devonshire, an exotic dancer at the Sandy Beaches Gentlemen’s Club.”

Raymond’s glassy eyes popped wide open. Mrs. Lee’s narrowed.

“She’s dead,” I said. “You didn’t know her?”

Two angry red splotches bloomed on Mrs. Lee’s cheeks. She shook her head. Questions were already gnawing at her. Good.

“Ms. Devonshire made a number of calls to your husband. Including her last call right before she died. That’s why I need to talk to him.”

Mrs. Lee’s jaw hardened as she lifted her chin. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“Neither do I. When do you expect him home?”

She pressed her lips into a thin line of disapproval, but said nothing. I let my silence push her.

“My husband and I are taking a little time apart, detective.” Those wary black eyes met mine in a level gaze.

Trouble at home only made my interest in Dr. Lee tick up a notch higher.

“When you hear from him,” I said, “would you ask your husband to call me right away?” I left my number.

A curt nod followed by the slamming door was my answer.

I lost no time getting back to my car. Mrs. Lee seemed to be telling the truth. The shoes under the bench corroborated her husband’s extended absence. No matter—I didn’t expect to hear back from Dr. Gabriel Lee either now or in the future, but in about thirty seconds I did expect his wife to call her husband and read him the riot act. Any wife would want to know what her husband was doing with some stripper young enough to be his daughter, and worse, what he had done to bring the police to their door.

I had my StingRey ready. The scanner mimics a cellphone tower, luring a phone to connect with it. Then it measures signals that phone puts out. Legally, I couldn’t pull the call out of the air and de-encrypt it like a paparazzo tracking a celebrity scoop. I was just hoping for the “ping” and a number for Lee’s glove phone.

A minute later the ping came. But not to Lee’s glove phone. Mrs. Lee placed a twenty second call to a land line in Sun Valley. Genesys, the pharma research company where Dr. Lee worked, was situated there. Twenty seconds wasn’t long enough for Mrs. Lee to have read her husband the riot act. It was, however, long enough to leave a voicemail. Was he still at work?

I put in a call myself and got voicemail, so I hung up and tried the main reception. The recorded message informed me Genesys was closed and gave the office hours. I guessed Lee had left for the day but was at least checking calls. It was worth the drive tomorrow. Singing along with latest Indigo Panthers-narco-corrida, I turned the car around and headed home.